Five dull minutes with the British Consul

FEEDBACK FROM BRITISH CONSUL MEETING IN FINESTRAT, 21 November 2018

Host: the Mayor of Finestrat, Juan Francisco Llorca
Visitors: The Consul, Sarah-Jane Morris, plus consular support team; HMRC representatives; and Richard Hill Vice President of Brexpats with his team from Alicante.

The Consul kicked off but had nothing concrete to say as usual. Her consular support Nicola was a bit more useful, asking if anyone had heard about the Withdrawal Agreement. Seven hands went up, so she was in with a chance. It was a good talk but no questions from the floor were invited.

Richard Hill talked about his group Brexpats.

“I’m going to start off by telling you what we don’t do. We don’t campaign against the Brexit (sic). There are many other groups who do – and we support them – but we do not. Right from the start when the referendum came out (sic) we commenced Brexpats in Spain and we decided to work with you – to assist you – and work with the local “ayunamentos” (sic), the consul, at ground level if you like, because we knew there were going to be problems.

That’s what we do: we try and stop the misinformation that goes round and we try and give information. Currently we’ve got abot 5000 members. We ask you to join us: you should have been given a small piece of paper that shows how to contact us, because the more people we have the better off we are. (sic)

Now the other thing we realised right from the start was we didn’t know what we were talking about. We knew we needed experts to help us. And what we do is we recruited experts who are able to assist us and assist you. And when we come to meetings like this we bring those experts with us, and they can assist you.

(Introduces Ignacio who is a tax expert.)

There’s also going to be issues with er… money. We know this. So we bring with us our financial experts. In this case it’s Sam from ….(inaudible)… who can talk to you about the financial side.

Then we’ve got myself who can assist you with looking at your residencia papers. We can say yes it’s ok or no this is what you should do. That’s what we are here for. To assist you. I must hand back to Sarah-Jane because she tells me she always has to have the last word.”

Refugees arriving in Spain in 2018

UPDATE 27 November 2018

A few days later it has emerged that the group “Brexpats” is now calling itself “Brefugees” – having accepted defeat before the battle is over!

After complaining about Remain groups letting them down (whatever that means) they say they favour the Norway option and will work towards that.

Brexpats may be forgiven for its defeatism: fighting a battle is hard, and not everyone will go the distance. However, there is a real problem with calling yourselves “Brefugees” when you live here on the coasts of Spain. There is an enormous crisis with thousands of REAL refugees arriving in the south of this country, or not making it and drowning at sea.

They are fleeing civil war, terrorism, rape, hunger, and sometimes a combination of all these horrors. How can British residents have the audacity to call themselves “refugees” while living a comfortable life on the costas?

The British residents of Finestrat might like to make their views known to the R.O.N. department at the Town Hall – who do not have any experience of anti-Brexit campaign groups – that Brexpats (or Brefugees) is not a group they wish to have foisted upon them in any future invitation. I have clearly recommended in the past that Bremain in Spain is the group to provide genuine information for British residents. The latest nonsense from the above outfit surely confirms this.

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2 thoughts on “Five dull minutes with the British Consul”

Maybe Mr. Hill used his free sample to pour on ‘the brexit’… It can also be used to lubricate jet engines on flights between London and Brussels. Indeed, it’s catalytic properties are well known for speeding up the sewing machines used to stitch up the brexit deals. Good stuff that snake oil.

Just for locals in villages of Finestrat, Sella & Orxeta: please go to my Facebook page or Twitter – I’m on both as @equusasinus4 – and see also @DominicRaabs which is the comedy account of Dominic Raab’s Geography Teacher. (If you are Theresa May, please don’t bring young Raab to parents’ evening: I’d rather speak to you about your attitude and behaviour than his.)

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